On Our Eventual Tech Overlords

It seems like everybody these days is talking about how we need to be wary of technology, particularly of how computers have gotten so powerful that soon they could band together and rise up, Terminator-style, to take over the world, making us their servants. Or worse.

Might happen. But, in the meantime, we have more immediate trust concerns when it comes to technology, namely that our weather apps are grossly inept and deceptive. Routinely, my weather app will display the following type of information:

Current temperature: 24

High Temperature: 20

Why is no one talking about THIS threat? How am I supposed to trust anything the app tells me from that point forward? At once, it is informing me that it will not get warmer than a temperature it already is warmer than. Can I hope for 25 or maybe even 27? Dunno.

It’s like sitting across from a doctor who is discussing a surgery and hearing him say, “We’ve had a 98% success rate with this procedure. Oh, and also, no one has survived this operation.”

True, this may be part of machine-kinds Earth-domination plan. Maybe they have sensed our ever-increasing dependency on our phones and are thus slowly building a system of chaos, one in which we can’t even enjoy the accurate weather forecasting that has become a staple of human existence in recent decades. Or, perhaps they are lulling us into a false sense of security. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about little old us, we can’t even understand how the weather works.”

Whatever the case, for now, we’d have better luck sticking our heads out of our windows or carrying around a copy of the Farmer’s Almanac. Or asking Siri, who is equally useless (if pleasant!).